Professor Andrew A. Nkom, is the Commissioner, Public Affairs and Information, Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission KAD-SIECOM. He speaks on the forthcoming local government election and the plan by the Commission to use the e-voting system.
How prepared is your Commission as regards the conduct of the forthcoming local government election?
Our job is to conduct election into positions in the 23 local governments.The positions are those of chairmen and councillors. People have been asking questions concerning the delay, but it is not about delay, it is a question of readiness. Our main concern has been how to correct certain lapses that we have noticed in the electoral process which has to do with misconception on what electoral process is. The moment we talk about electoral process in this country, people think we only talk about election, but electoral process covers more than just election.
So we are trying the disinformation by carrying out sensitization of the public through voter’ education. We have done sensitization at state level – at the northern and central senatorial zones and we are waiting to do that of the eight local government areas within southern Kaduna zone.
Is there any specific time schedule for the election?
You don’t fix election dates until you are sure that everything is in place. The moment you announce the dates, you have exact 90 days within which it must hold. So if you announce the election date without adequate preparations, you may end up in trouble and that is why we are waiting. We want to be adequately prepared before announcing election date.
There are reports that the commission is planning to use the e-voting method for the election. How true is this?
The whole world is turning to electronic voting now. It is essentially the best way to ensure there is no rigging, snatching of ballot boxes and that everybody’s vote is accounted for. The details will be given when we are ready. When we are ready we will carry out the second phase of our responsibility, which is voters’ education. We would talk about how are we are going to do the election, what we are going to use and which people are going to be involved.
What about unclaimed voters’ cards? Are the owners coming to claim them to show some level of commitment?
We are not in charge of that but you can get that information from INEC, it means you need to check with INEC directly. We don’t keep custody of voters’ cards here, but whether they are available at INEC offices at local government level that I don’t know.
What is the commission doing to keep its staff up to date now that it is considering e-voting?
We have scheduled training of members of staff, but we are going to be using a different approach to train them properly to reduce possibility of misuse of positions.
Apart from the one you mentioned earlier, are there other lapses to be addressed before the poll?
There will always be challenges but the positive point is that the state government has knowledge of what we are trying to do. We are on the same page with the government because it is also interested in free and fair election for whoever wins win not a question of political party and that is why it is supporting us in approach, sensitization and publications of books and general preparation to ensure that election turnout very qualified persons.
We are also hoping that the politicians or political parties will help by ensuring that their primaries bring out the best candidates that they can present. If a political party brings out candidate that is not good enough, the electorate will vote for candidate from another party.
The propsed e-voting system which is probably going to be first of its kind in the country. Is SIECOM planning this along with key stakeholders especially the political parties?
We are already in touch with organization of all political parties in Kaduna State. The political parties are registered by INEC not by us. So we recognize all political parties that are recognize by INEC and all of them as far as we are concern will be treated equally. We don’t know about big parries or small parties, all of them are parties and all of them are our responsibility.
The main thing is that we want people to watch out because we expect that in Kaduna State, we are going to do things differently from what other electoral bodies have done. For example, this issue of voter education is what we will be working whether there is election or not. We will have our people on the field giving us information and preparing people, and as soon as election is over, they will continue preparing people for the next election and that is what we meant by electoral process as different from election.
For example, political parties are now pressing for election because they have candidates that are interested. They should be concerned about what happens after they win the election because this time around, the electorates have to monitor them. They want to see whether you are representing them. They want to see if you are doing what they sent you there to do. That means those that would win election have to sit up and be seen by their wards and constituencies to be doing what the electorates want.
Considering the security situation in Southern part of the state, how would you ensure safety of your staff and electorates both during the sensitization and election. Do you think the people in that area will fully participate in all these when the time come?
The security situation is improving because the curfews have been relaxed.